Crackle, crackle.
The burning fire consumes the rotten wooden window and melts the swords and arrowheads. Sparks scatter in all directions, and the acrid smell pricks at the nose. From the first step came arrows, the second fire, the third also fire, and the fourth was attacked by a trap with fire, targeting Kang Sihyun. How could one's luck be so terrible? Having chosen poorly at all four opportunities, Sihyun gagged, covering his mouth.
With a surge,
Blood poured out from between his parted lips. The injury from the fourth trap was severe. He considered treating it right away but realized something after passing the second and third steps—it was less draining on mana to suffer all injuries up to the sixth step before treating them.
"It really hurts..."
His temperament seems to have worsened since entering the pyramid. Perhaps it's because there are no kids to watch and learn from, no one to listen. Sihyun, who had always swallowed his curses, now spat them out harshly, shaking the blood from his hands before facing the fifth step.
Having failed alternating between right and left, it was time to try left once more. It was almost as if he should set up a fortune-telling shop for bad luck if he hit another trap this time.
The pain from the spear that had pierced his abdomen at the fourth trap hadn't subsided, a natural consequence of not having treated it. Sihyun straightened his battered body, caressing his staff to calm his wavering heart before kicking off the ground with the back of his foot.
Crackle!
He dashes out at a swift pace, stepping onto the left platform. His blue eyes agilely scanned the corridor in every direction. Nothing seemed amiss to his darkness-adapted eyes: no fire from the ceiling or walls, no sinking floors, and no arrows flying at him from the front. Just as his expression was about to brighten at the absence of the clicking sound of a trap being activated, the ground shook.
Rumble, rumble.
A loud noise was heard. Having experienced the collapse of buildings multiple times, Sihyun realized that this was not the sound of a building about to collapse. It wasn't a prelude to collapse; rather, it resembled the sound of something gigantic rolling towards him.
Could it be?
Briefly moving his lips, Sihyun sighed deeply with unease as he stared ahead. A stone was rolling towards him from the end of the corridor.
Round and seemingly cute, but enormous in size—twice the size of his body—a gigantic stone rolled towards him.
"In a novel, even this would be considered overdoing it..."
He couldn't quite finish his sentence, overwhelmed by astonishment. Five consecutive failures. At this point, it seemed there must be traps on every step. Watching the rolling stone with a blank stare, it wasn't until the stone's form became clearly visible that Sihyun realized he had to move out of its path.
To avoid the rolling stone filling the corridor, he had no choice but to run backward. However, there were steps behind him. There was no guarantee that a step that had been activated once wouldn't activate again, and as he hesitated, the stone rolled up right in front of him.
"Damn it."
Alternating his gaze between the stone and the step, Sihyun eventually clenched his eyes shut and jumped.
Click,
Click,
Click.
The sound of traps being activated followed one after another. Soon, familiar pillars of fire shot up, and various weapons flew at him, threatening his life. Using 30% of his remaining mana, he formed the strongest protective shield possible. Crack! The shield made terrifying noises in several places.
The situation was dire, yet the stone rolled even faster.
There was no time to hesitate or falter in the face of the fire pillars. Casting aside all thoughts except the need to survive, Sihyun ran madly, turning back at the first fork in the road he had seen and dodging to the opposite side. The rolling stone continued its path, disappearing into the place where Sihyun had avoided the collapsing ceiling.
"Ha, ha..."
His breath became rough, his chest heaving and then falling in quick succession. If it weren't for the exhaustion from evading four traps, he wouldn't have been this out of breath after running for less than 10 minutes. It felt harder because his life had been in danger at least five times during that brief period.
He tapped his chest a few times with his fist and gripped his staff tightly. Once his breathing somewhat stabilized, he returned to the steps, only to face ongoing challenges. Sihyun stepped onto a step he hadn't chosen before, once again feeling the threat to his life.
Crack, crackle!
His assumption that every step contained a trap proved accurate. Two steps were merely a choice of which trap to activate; a side of the wall collapsed, and a mix of dirt and stones took on a humanoid shape, attacking Sihyun.
It resembled a golem.
Startled by the heavy punch the golem swung at him, Sihyun quickly dodged backward and reflexively swung his staff. He poured a massive amount of water over it and froze it in an instant, halting its movement. The golem, frozen while throwing its punch, turned into an ice statue, stopping right next to Sihyun.
"...This is driving me insane."
If all the remaining steps were going to be like this, it seemed easier to just face the traps he had already encountered. Realizing that choosing a step was meaningless, Sihyun wasted no time stepping forward and managed to block all the traps, moving quickly to the sixth step. His body was in shambles by the time he passed the last step.
No sooner had he descended from the step to flat ground than his legs gave way, and he collapsed. Unintentionally sitting down, Sihyun lifted his heavy eyelids and blinked slowly. He had bled so much that his senses had dulled.
Sitting on the ground, he slowly leaned against the wall. Carefully exhaling, Sihyun looked back at the traps he had overcome.
The sixth step had been the hardest. Iron bars sprang from the ceiling and the floor, trying to trap him, but he managed to escape agilely. However, the traps didn't end there. Suddenly, the iron bars bent and pierced his back, unprotected— not one but several. It was the first time in his life he had so many holes in his body.
It was incredibly difficult to pull out the bars that were stuck in him, shaking and trembling. As a result, his clothes were in a sorry state, far from normal.
He glanced down at his tattered clothes, lifted his trembling arm pitifully, and used a healing skill. A significant amount of his remaining mana was drained. Flesh regenerated and all wounds healed, leaving him with slightly more than 40% of his mana remaining.
Considering how much he had used the skill, he had a lot left, but it was hardly reassuring in this perilous pyramid. If someone's life signal went out, meaning they were on the verge of death, it would require a considerable amount of mana to save them, certainly not a good situation. Sihyun sighed involuntarily and checked the device on his wrist. Fortunately, it seemed no one else had died while he was too busy dealing with the traps to notice.
It was time to get moving.
He wanted to rest for about 10 minutes, but he had wasted too much time in the traps. Unable to rest comfortably even for 5 minutes, he slowly got up and walked down a clean corridor. No more steps appeared, and a long, straight path stretched endlessly. After walking for a while, Sihyun suddenly sensed something odd and looked up.
The ceiling had gotten higher.
It had gradually risen without his noticing, but the ceiling was now twice as high as when Sihyun had first fallen into this underground area.
Was the ceiling designed to get higher the further in you go?
Tilting his head in confusion, Sihyun felt the walls a few more times before moving on. The rising ceiling stopped at a certain height and didn't go any higher.
Wondering if something had changed, he carefully examined the walls and surroundings as he walked. Then, from a distance, he began to see light. In this dark, damp underground without a single torch, for the first time, there was bright light.
Eyes widening with a moment of emotion, Sihyun hurried his steps.
If there was light in this underground, it could only be from a fire made by people.
He thought he might meet his companions sooner than expected. Haeun or Jihye would be pleased, but if not, it didn't necessarily have to be his companions. If it were people who had gone missing, he could find out what had happened in this pyramid. Thinking it would be beneficial regardless of whom he met, his expression brightened. His legs, weary and trembling, moved with renewed hope.
The faint light grew brighter as he advanced. Eventually, a bright space appeared a few meters ahead. The amount of light suggested it might not be from a torch lit by humans but could be a space brightly illuminated by placing phosphorescent stones.
It was somewhat disappointing, but still better than wandering endlessly in this damp underground passage. When he hastened his steps, something came into view.
It was still too far away to make out clearly what it was, but something dark was within the bright space. Narrowing his eyes, Sihyun slowed his pace slightly, tensing his body in preparation for any unforeseen circumstances and gripping his staff tightly. When he finally stepped into the bright space with his mud-covered feet, he emerged from the dark passage and held his breath.
The space, immeasurably more vast than any he had seen before, had a ceiling that soared high upward, dwarfing everything Sihyun had encountered thus far. In the center of this bright space stood a single chair.
A massive, pitch-black chair sat in the middle of the room, but it wasn't the chair itself that caught Sihyun's attention. It was the statue seated upon it, the likes of which he had never seen before in his life.
The statue had three antler-like horns protruding from its head, blurring the line between human and beast.
Its body was human-like, but fur sprouted from its hands and feet, the latter of which resembled hooves, and its hands were covered in fur with long nails protruding.
However, what truly shocked Sihyun wasn't the bizarre and grandiose statue.
It was because, seated with its hands resting on the armrests and its head bowed, on the statue's knees lay a face Sihyun recognized all too well.
"Ah..."
A sigh escaped through his parched lips. With trembling eyes, Sihyun looked at the figure atop the statue and took one slow step after another toward it.
The boy's once radiant silver hair was now matted with dried blood, twisted and tangled, and his clothes were even more ragged than Sihyun's, smeared with red and blue blood. Yet, the boy's face, serene as if in eternal slumber, made Sihyun's heart wrench.
"...Kang Haewoon."
On the knees of the giant statue lay the boy Sihyun had been searching for so desperately.
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